


thus swear we all

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-24 10:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: (ficlets cross-posted from tumblr for FeanorianWeek 2019)





	1. maedhros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 1- Maedhros -> ~~Childhood, Kingship, Torture,~~ Adjusting/Coping, ~~Unity, Beauty~~

The world feels emptier, in the wake of the massacre. Or, at least ‘emptier’ is the word that Maedhros thinks he means to use, but – thinking is difficult, right now, and so, for that matter, is breathing. Is being. How can he just _be_ in a world that no longer-

“Nelyo.”

Maedhros is well aware that everything he regrets right now can be laid squarely at his own feet. He had arrived too late to meet Findekáno’s forces; he had been unable to push through the slaughter and join them. And he had been far, far from his liege lord’s side when Findekáno had fallen, the blue and silver banners of his father’s house stained crimson with the blood of its best and most beloved son.

“Nelyo.”

And Maedhros will never know precisely how his lover died. Oh, he has gathered the stories of those who first found Findekáno body – head caved in by cruel steel, torso crushed by great fiery heels. There is no doubt that Findekáno died alone, in pain, perhaps doubting whether Maedhros had even joined the battle or else had let his house’s damnable pride keep him from coming with the Union he himself had brokered. But these are only conjectures, the phantasms that must keep Maedhros from sleeping ever again. He will never truly know. He will never see Findekáno again, will never be able to ask or assuage those fears.

“Nelyo.”

 _You know I would never truly leave you, yes? That so long as I draw breath, I am also fighting to return to you?_ He had said none of this the last time they had seen one another, had simply assumed that it was understood. And now he would never be able to say it to a man who could hear him.

“Nelyo, if I must speak any louder then the noise will alert your guards, and we will never hear the end of it.”

Makalaurë. How long has he been speaking?

“Nelyo, I know that you are grieving him, but you cannot continue like this. Your people look to you for guidance. Where shall we go, now that our homes are gone and the Anfauglith has claimed our bones?”

Always a turn for the poetic, Makalaurë. Even when it was least wanted.

“We can die.”

“Brother, now is no time for your melodramatics.” There is a shift in the blanket that Maedhros has tucked across his shoulders: perhaps Makalaurë has pulled it closer about him. “All of our quarrels aside, I am truly sorry for the loss of our High King – may his memory live forever! But Nelyo, we must look to those who yet live.”

And he says this so calmly, as if he really thinks he understands the worst of what has happened in this calamity that their Sindarin allies are already terming the Nirnaeth Arnoediad!

“We all die, Makalaurë.” He shrugs off the blanket that his brother has tucked about him. “And most of us will die alone, as he did: in pain, as he did. I am under no illusion that I could have prevented his death. But at least I could have died with him.”  

“Grieve as you must, I cannot stop you and I do not intend to try,” Makalaurë says with a touch of impatience. “But brother, please, our people still look to you to lead them!”

And it is obvious that still Makalaurë does not seem to understand how, without Findekáno, there is nothing left of Maedhros for his people to look to. His body yet remains, and given time enough, can likely even stand again, issue orders again, look commanding again.

But whatever it is that drove his body – for Maedhros believes no more in souls or spirits or the myth of the West – that thing is gone, following Findekáno to whatever dark and silent nothingness it is that awaits them all after death.


	2. maglor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2-Maglor -> Childhood, ~~Music & Songs of Power,~~ Elrond & Elros, ~~Kingship, Maglor’s Gap,~~ Redemption

Makalaurë watches the boys play, out upon one of the few patches of grass before the keep that yet remains green and blooming. The elder of the two – so far as he and Nelyo can determine their ages, that is – the elder wields a wooden sword, a toy that he swings about in wild abandon and laughs as its momentum swings his body in circles following its rotation. The younger – again, so far as they can tell, with no access to further information about these boys or about half-elven children in general – the younger shakes his head and plops to a seat in the grass, where he sends a single wooden horse and its brightly-painted rider galloping across the grass in play.

They are too young to remember, Makalaurë thinks, and thank the stars for that. They are only children, and they do not know what atrocities were visited upon their city and their mother’s people by the very tools that they now wield in play.

Elros does not remember his nurse being cut down by a Fëanorian sword, whose blade was so much sharper and colder than that of the toy he now swings in play. Elrond does not remember his mother’s guards being run down, trampled, by the iron-shod hooves of Fëanorian horses, whose cloaks might not have gleamed quite as bright red as his toy’s but still red enough to mark the house that committed these crimes.

They are only children, yes? And the years have slouched and stretched their slow way past until nearly ten have elapsed since that dark day in Sirion. Ten years, with every one of them rendering Makalaurë’s plans to take Elwing’s children back more and more unfeasible.

Ten winters spent sheltering and teaching these boys as Makalaurë had once dreamed of teaching children of his own – a dream that he has long since lost beneath the shadow of his own father’s oath. Ten summers spent watching these boys play from a window high above, wondering at the energy of youth and marveling in the signs of prowess with all the same pride as a true father of their blood might feel.

Ten years spent wondering whether they hate him. Whether they understand what he did. Whether they _know_.

He thinks they do not. And yet – there is that sword. That horse and rider. The toys still have the power to make Makalaurë pause.

When Elros laughs as he swings his sword, he does not mean to be mocking Makalaurë, who did nothing to stop his man from cutting down the boy’s nurse. When Elrond smiles as he mimics the shouts of a rider and the whinnying of his horse, he does not

Don’t they? They do not remember. Do they?

 _They are only children,_ he wants to scream – though to whom, and where, and how, he does not know. _They are only children, and they deserve better than the day when they must look at their toys and realize that these are replicas of the very things that laid waste to their lives._

They are only children, Elwing’s boys – children like the Ambarussa, and Curufinwë’s boy Tyelpe, and the little souls that Makalaurë had once dreamed of fathering himself – and his first thought, his first prayer if he still believed in such things, should probably be for their safety, their growth, their happiness.

Instead, Makalaurë wishes – with all that he imagines remains of his heart – that these boys never grow up enough to remember their very earliest childhood.  


	3. celegorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3- Celegorm -> Childhood, Hunting, ~~Orome & Huan, Strength & Beauty, Wickedness,~~ Love/ ~~Unrequited~~

Being the older brother is strange, Tyelkormo finds. He has been the youngest for so many years that when Atarinkë is put into his arms for the first time, he simply stares.

_(Nerdanel always laughs when she tells the story later. She loves to remind her listeners that this is the stillest she had ever seen her wild boy.)_

“What do I do with him?” Tyelkormo eventually asks his mother and father, whispering and wide-eyed when he can finally look away from the babe sleeping in his arms. Fëanáro is quick to assure him that Atarinkë is his parents’ responsibility until he is old enough to become his own – _none of this ‘your older sibling must raise you’ nonsense_ _within our house_ , he spits with a strange vehemence, and Nerdanel frowns, shaking her head – but Tyelkormo persists.

Maitimo is heir of their house and Makalaurë is prisoner of his harp and he, Tyelkormo, is: “What am I?”

“You are whatever you choose to be, my son,” Fëanáro tells him fondly, ruffling his light hair with an affectionate smile. “So long as you are good to those of your blood and they are good to you, you can do no wrong.”

His father’s words remain with Tyelkormo, even when Fëanáro is long gone – so much ash upon the wind when his stolen spirit ignites his dying flesh, so many burns seared into the flesh of Atarinkë’s arms where the favored son had tried to hold his fading father close.

_Whatever you choose to be, my son. So long as you are good to those of your blood._

And so Tyelkormo becomes many things, for the child he once held in his arms and for the man that child becomes.

He becomes a hunter, the only one who can find and bring down a hare to feed Atarinkë’s boy when the winter is harsh and the whole camp is lean with hunger. A killer, who wastes no sleep over whether his blade is whet by kin or friend or foe so long as Atarinkë still stands. A gentle uncle who cares for Atarinke’s son, but also teaches the boy everything there is to know of woodcraft and warfare and wooing.

He is watchful eye at Atarinkë’s back as they are forced to flee Himlad. A guard who stands watch at Findaráto’s door in Nargothrond when Atarinkë’s begins to spend his nights there. A pursuer who stalks the princess of Doriath in search of an alliance that would sate Atarinkë’s political machinations. A mute man in the face of his hound’s betrayal. An avenger who screams his anguish for Atarinkë’s death and runs Dior Eluchil through with his own dying breath.

For, all his life, Tyelkormo is good to those of his blood, no matter the cost in his own.


	4. caranthir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4- Caranthir - > ~~Childhood, Betrayal,~~ Lordship, ~~Dwarves &~~ Humans, ~~Marriage, Appearance~~

“Explain this to me again.” Perhaps if Caranthir prompts Maedhros enough, or pokes him enough, then he will receive an actual answer about the Man who is currently seated outside the door to Maedhros’s office. But despite his best efforts, Maedhros remains – well, Maedhros – and Caranthir is beginning to lose both hope and patience. “Why am I the one who is to be saddled with some hundreds of Easterlings from across the Blue Mountains?”

“Because you are the best with Men,” Maedhros says shortly, not even looking up from whatever it is that has his quill scratching away with so much industry.

Caranthir rather wants to bat the bobbing feather away and demand that Maedhros _speak his mind, damn him,_ for all the good that _speaking_ has ever done them _._ The worst of it is, that claim is patently untrue: Caranthir is _not_ good with Men. In fact, he is not good with anyone. Haleth, Arda spare her spirit, was good with _him_ and that is all there is to this particular myth.

“You mean that you are lazy,” he tells Maedhros instead, clenching his fist and bringing it down upon the table with a crash. Anything to keep himself from snatching the quill out of his older brother’s hand and, Arda forfend, forcing them to actually _talk_ to one another rather than sniping and circling. . . “Lazy, and shiftless, and prone to spending your time dreaming of ways to ride out and see your paramour rather than doing any actual administration.”

Finally, _finally_ , Maedhros looks up, and his eyes gleam with the beginnings of a temper that most never seem to realize can match Caranthir’s own. And Caranthir’s blood has never needed much impetus to boil, so this – the glare from his eldest brother, but backed with all the weight of Caranthir’s own history with Haleth, a woman whose memory does _not_ deserve Maedhros’s fingerprints all across it – is more than enough to provoke his rage.

But in the end, it is the memory of Haleth that prevents what might otherwise become a fourth kinslaying. Haleth had never been one to sit by and let Caranthir’s temper rule: it is for her sake now, or rather her memory, that he somehow tamps down his frustration, and his anger, and his grief, and the growing sense of unease that only seems to loom day by day, and bites out the words that might prevent open war.

“So. Tell me about this Ulfang. And rest assured that I am _not_ the best one you could have appointed to this task, and I will not be made responsible for whatever might come of it.”

“You can, and you will,” Maedhros returns.

“I will not,” Caranthir promises. His rage has left him as quickly as it had come, and quite abruptly he is too weary to feel anything, even grief.


	5. curufin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5- Curufin -> Childhood, Fëanor, Forgework, Celebrimbor, ~~Manipulation, Ruling of Nargothrond~~

 

Minds are like iron, his father had once told Curufinwë. They are strong, and proud, and sharp, and yet:

“If you know what you are doing, and you work at it long enough, then even iron – even minds – will bend for you.” His hands are far, far rougher, than Curufinwë’s own, but they are gentle where they have closed over Curufinwë’s, modeling for him how he must grasp a tool. “It is an ability that you must practice, and wield with both caution and pride, for it is a power that is not to be wielded lightly. Yes?”

And for all that Fëanáro tells him this at such a young age, Curufinwë is reminded of his father’s comparison often.

When Fëanáro decries his half-brother for pandering to their father and exiles himself to Formenos before the Valar can make the decree for him, Curufinwë remembers his words, and burns with a fierce pride that _this is his father and this is what he can do!_

When Fëanáro brandishes his sword high and proud and firelit above a roaring crowd in the square of Tirion, thundering his Oath in perfect form though he must be composing it even as he speaks, Curufinwë remembers those words, and shivers with an intense satisfaction that _this is his father and this is what he will do!_

When Fëanáro’s spirit ignites in Curufinwë’s arms, searing his body to ash and setting Curufinwë’s robes and flesh afire with his demise, whispering his last directive – that his sons will hold to their quest – j Curufinwë remembers those old, old words, and his eyes are red from both the smoke and the realization that _this was his father and this is what he had done. . ._

So Curufinwë tries to teach his own son – his clever little boy, who was not born in a palace made of stone, who never saw the shores of Valinor, who never learned at Fëanáro’s knee. And to this child Curufinwë tries to impart what he finally, finally, learned from his own father.

“Minds are like metal, precious and rare,” he whispers. “You need not hone your skill in working them, for they are already good as they are. And even should you work them, do not impress upon them too hard, for they will strain and crack beneath your hammer if you harry them overlong. And perhaps most importantly – no two metals are alike, but learn them well and treat them well and you will see better things than if you do not.”  

And Tyelperinquar, already a solemn child with wide grey eyes, simply nods around his own thumb in his mouth, and with this Curufinwë must be satisfied: that his own son understands, even if Curufinwë himself did not see the truth in time.


	6. the ambarussa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6- Ambarussa - > ~~Childhood, Lordship,~~ Regrets, Twin, ~~Hunting, Nandor~~

 

Makalaurë says that they are going to a place called Sirion. Telvo does not know whether that name is supposed to mean anything to him – he forgets many things these days, many important things – so he just nods and lets Makalaurë speak on, as he is wont to do.

“It is a desperate gamble, Telvo, but it is only we three left to do it. Are you in?”

In? In what? What has Telvo ever been in since they landed on these shores? What has he really ever been in since – since Pityo died?

“Telvo?” Makalaurë prods, sounding gentle and sad in that way Telvo hates so much, and Telvo will do anything to make that useless pity just _stop_ because no amount of remorse or regret will bring his twin back to him, will restore the life to Pityo’s eyes and lift him back to his feet and brush the ash from his skin, leave him remade and happy and whole again . . .

“In,” he manages to spit at Makalaurë, and perhaps Makalaurë continues to look at him with pity but Telvo does not know, for Telvo stands and leaves, his patience with his brother at an end. And he still does not know where Sirion is or why they are going there, but then they are always going places, yes? What does it matter, if they ride out to one place more?

But in the end it does matter. It matters because Sirion is a ship-haven, and it matters because Sirion is burning. It matters because somewhere in Sirion, someone – a child, a boy-child – is screaming.

In that shrinking corner of his mind where the animal of Telvo’s self has curled, Telvo shakes, and realizes that he does not like Sirion.

“Telvo! Draw your sword and defend yourself, brother! Now is not the time to freeze like a deer!”

And somewhere in Sirion, wherever and whatever Sirion is, the boy-child is screaming, screaming, screaming. Somewhere, flames crackle with hunger: somewhere, a mast groans before its timbers scream in protest, snapping and splintering.

Somewhere, Pityo is trapped. Why is Telvo holding a sword? What good is a sword to him, when he must wade out into the water, as fast as he can go, to clamber up the burning timbers and save his brother?

“Telvo! _Telvo!_ ”

The world is very cold and the voice calling his name – which could be Makalaurë or could be Tyelko, though Telvo seems to remember that Tyelko is dead now too – sounds like it is coming from very far away. And there is a sword in Telvo’s belly; he is not sure how it got there. He was holding a sword just a moment ago, before he set it down and ran for the water to wade out to Pityo, but this seems to be a different one –

“ _Telvo!”_

– and it _hurts._ He is fairly sure that the belly is not where you put a sword, and he even opens his mouth to tell the Sindarin soldier standing before him as much, but the words will not emerge when all the space in his mouth has been taken up by blood, red and hot and bitter.

The voice that he cannot place has stopped calling his name, and the Sindarin soldier wrenches his blade free, turning to face someone behind himself. And finally, finally, Telvo is able to sink into the water seeking his brother – which he does, surrendering first his knees and then his face, his entire body, to the sea, falling forward into it.

The blood in his mouth is carried away by the restless sea, but that is all right, Telvo thinks. Perhaps the sea will sweep it out toward the ships that he saw and heard and smelled burning; perhaps his blood will serve as a banner, to let Pityo know that someone is finally coming to save him.


	7. nerdanel and feanor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7- Nerdanel and Feanor-> ~~Mahtan, Marriage,~~ Reunion, Traveling, ~~Creation,~~ Healing

No one knows what to do, the day that a Maia of Mandos materializes in the square of Tirion and asks, in its inscrutable soundless voice, for folk who are willing to go up to the Gardens of Lórien, their master’s brother. When someone in the crowd finally dares to ask _why, what for_ , the Maia simply says that the dead have come, and someone must care for them as they move from _death_ to _dream_ to _being_ again.

And thus it is that the Eldar who remained in the West learn how their brethren who died across the Sea will return to them.

Nerdanel volunteers the instant she learns. Her time becomes split between her own gardens and Lórien’s, and she is as tireless in seeking the ones she loved as she is in sculpting the memorials for them as they had been, oh so long ago.

And her youngest son is returned to her first. When she finds him in the gardens of Lórien, so many years after she first began to attend them, Pityo’s eyes are wide and wondering at the sunlight, the green trees. It takes Nerdanel some time to realize that her youngest son must have died before Arien’s vessel was made, and that he never saw the sun rise, over across the sea in that strange middle-earth. But he is a man now, not the child who left her that dark day, and for all that he must have seen and done – all that he will not speak of yet – Pityo seems little marked for all his time across the sea, and he laughs as he joins her in tending both sets of gardens, a tall red-headed duckling in her shadow.

Some hundreds of years later, Morifinwë, Curufinwë, and Tyelko are released. She finds them together, for apparently Moryo would not leave until both his brothers might come with him. And it is Moryo who does not avoid her eyes or her questions, when she asks the three of them what happened, Pityo sitting quietly and anxiously by. (They have discovered together that Pityo does not recollect his death – a gift from his own mind to protect him in his second life, perhaps.) And Moryo tells them everything, blunt and unflinching though Tyelko whimpers and Curufinwë looks away. And so it is her fourth son, her dark son, the one Nerdanel remembers as a hot-tempered boy, who holds his brothers together and brings them back to her. It is Moryo who does not hesitate to return her embrace, or her whispered words of familial love, though Tyelko is mute and simply clings to her like he has not grown nearly two heads taller than she is, and Curufinwë huffs, wordless, and will not come near her for many, many days. It feels like a triumph of sorts when Moryo finally loses his patience and shoves Curufinwë’s arms apart, placing them around Nerdanel’s shoulders as if showing him how to accept touch again; and indeed, eventually, Curufinwë does accept her embrace, hiding his face in her shoulder as if this can also hide his sobs.

It is over a century longer before Telvo comes. And even then, Nerdanel almost does not spot him: he has shrunk away from all contact with the living, hiding in the further corners of the garden as if there is one whose sight he would avoid. Indeed, it is Pityo who first sees him – whose shrieks of joy cannot be muffled by even the sultry air of Lórien’s gardens upon his reunion with his twin. But Telvo is quieter than even Curufinwë, even more apt to cling than Tyelko. For all their return home, he does not release his brother, and eventually Nerdanel realizes that it is now Pityo who speaks for the both of them.

 And Maitimo does not return; neither does Makalaurë.  Ships from the East bring tidings that Makalaurë yet lives, doing penance still; no ship brings any word of Maitimo – or Maedhros, as he seemed to have taken to calling himself. It is as if her eldest son fell into darkness somewhere along the road and even his name has been forgotten.

And in time, Nerdanel stops frequenting the gardens of Lórien. She has other gardens to focus on, as she takes those of her sons who have returned to her and leaves Tirion to reopen the gardens of Formenos - for them, and for herself.

And if Fëanáro himself yet remains with Mandos? Well, Nerdanel cannot wait forever for one who will not choose her in return, as she had put so much aside to choose them.  


End file.
